The 10 best apps for the HTC One M9

The HTC One M9 is a corker of a handset. And once you've stopped admiring the clarity of selfies taken with its ultrapixel front snapper, you might want to download an app or several.

Far be it for us to disappoint - here are 10 of the best…

Caustic 3 (free, S$11.24 to unlock full version)

It's tricky to pick an ultimate feature on the One M9 - mainly because there are so darn many. Unhelpful as HTC are by jamming the new model so full of capabilities, the return of its fabled forward-facing BoomSound speakers still stands out.

How best to make use of these excellent noise-blasters? Caustic 3 is a fully functioning synth and sampler app, with an array of virtual music machines to choose from. Once you've tweaked all of the beautifully rendered knobs and sliders on the mixer deck, plonked on the imagined ivory, laid down your BeatBox rhythms and Vocoder-ed to your heart's content, you can save and export everything you've created to enjoy again and again in glorious BoomSound.

Tunein radio (free)

Prefer enjoying other people's musical creations to making your own? TuneIn Radio remains one of the best free radio streaming apps out there. With more than 100,000 stations to choose from, you'd need delicately niche audio tastes to be left wanting.

Crank up those speakers again to enjoy everything from Bon Jovi and Bjorg to MJ and Muse, and all of the funkadelia in-between. With the M9's 2840mAh battery you should get a full day's listening, and if music becomes a bit too mainstream you can always opt for one of the numerous sports, news or podcast channels.

FxGuru: Movie FX Director (free)

Fancy yourself as the next Speilberg? Then you should probably put down your M9, pick up a camcorder and enrol on a film-making course. If, however, you're happy to super-impose a few cheesy but fun CGI effects on top of videos shot with the M9's 20.7MP rear camera then you should download this.

Choose your scene, line up the overlayed mesh, and hit the big red button. The One's octa-core processor should make rendering a breeze, and you'll soon have zombies rising up from the office floor, UFOs crashing in the car park and Bigfoot in your back garden.

Need more? There are more than 90 effects available as in-app purchases, and free ones are regularly given away.

Retrica (free)

Moving the famed UltraPixel camera from the rear of the M8 to the front of the M9 is a bold move from HTC, and the result is selfies of superior quality.

Choosing bigger pixels rather than more of them, the front shooter delivers excellent low-light shots, and you'll want to make best use of these with a quality photo editing app.

Retrica gives you more than 100 filters to choose from, which you can view in real-time as you're snapping away, while other features such as built-in timer and collage options make this much more than an Insta-wannabee. And fear not: there are an array of social sharing options, so you needn't worry about showing off your smile.

Call of Duty®: Heroes (free)

If you're a fan of first person shooters then Heroes isn't for you. Toned down into a campaign-style button-basher, it's more about strategy than reaction times. But, while it's not in the traditional vein of C.O.D., it still gives you decent graphics on the One's 441ppi 5in display alongside day-wasting playability.

Like The Settlers meets something out of Terminator, Heroes introduces players to icons from across the franchise, combining them with futuristic troop units to be deployed and upgraded. As if the M9 wasn't hard enough to put down already, Heroes is all about boosting your skills, bolstering your defences and going on the offensive to level-up. The only downside? You need an internet connection to play.